“A suspected terrorist attack in central Israel killed at least three people
and injured several others late on Thursday, shaking the country as it ce

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


May 6, 2022

 

The Wall Street Journal: Suspected Terrorist Attack In Israel Kills At Least
Three On Independence Day
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“A suspected terrorist attack in central Israel killed at least three people
and injured several others late on Thursday, shaking the country as it
celebrated Independence Day. Two unidentified assailants were involved in the
attack, including one who was armed with an ax, according to Deputy
Superintendent Mirit Ben Mayor, an Israeli police spokeswoman. It occurred in
Elad, a largely ultra-Orthodox town adjacent to the occupied West Bank, and
came in the wake of increased tensions at one of Jerusalem’s most contested
holy sites, where Israeli police and Palestinians clashed in the morning.
Hundreds of officers were searching for the perpetrators who fled the scene
after carrying out the attack and whose identity the police hadn’t confirmed
yet, Ms. Ben Mayor said. Avi Biton, the police commander for Israel’s central
district, told reporters that special forces, intelligence officers and
helicopters were participating in the pursuit of the attackers. The deadly
incident could fuel tensions, which have soared in recent months as a wave of
Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank have left 15 Israelis dead
before Thursday’s attack, while more than two dozen Palestinians have been
killed by Israeli security forces in recent months.”

 

The Times Of Israel: UN Chief Expresses ‘Grave Concern’ Over Hezbollah’s Arms
Ahead Of Lebanese Elections
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“The UN chief called for Lebanon’s parliamentary elections on May 15 to be
“free, fair, transparent and inclusive” in a report circulated Wednesday, and
warned of Hezbollah’s destabilizing presence in the country that is undergoing
multiple crises. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report to the
UN Security Council that political polarization in the country has deepened and
the Lebanese people “are struggling daily to meet basic essential needs.” He
pointed to frequent protests across the country sparked by “public frustration
with the political situation and the economic and financial crisis.” The May 15
elections for parliament are the first since Lebanon’s economic meltdown began
in late 2019. The government’s factions have done virtually nothing to address
the collapse, leaving Lebanese citizens to fend for themselves as they plunge
into poverty, without electricity, medicine, garbage collection or any other
semblance of normal life. The elections are also the first since the August 4,
2020, catastrophic explosion at Beirut port that killed more than 215 people
and wrecked large parts of the city. The destruction sparked widespread outrage
at the traditional parties’ endemic corruption and mismanagement.”

 

Afghanistan

 

Foreign Policy: Millions Of Afghans Want To Flee. LGBTQ Afghans Have To.
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“Sixty Afghan LGBT people who had been living in fear for their lives due to
their sexual orientation and gender arrived in Canada in time to celebrate the
Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr this week, safe at last from persecution and
death threats from the extremist Taliban now in control of their country. They
are among what Nemat Sadat, an Afghan activist who has lived in the United
States for more than a decade, calls “the most vulnerable people in the most
dangerous country in the world.” Since the Taliban reinstated extremist rule
last August, Sadat said, Afghanistan’s untold thousands of LGBT people have
lived in fear of violence for not conforming to the Islamists’ notion of sexual
normalcy. He has helped more than 80 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
nonbinary people reach safety outside Afghanistan since the Western-supported
government collapsed last summer. That leaves around 1,000 more he has
identified as needing urgent evacuation. “Even that number in a country of 35
million is small,” Sadat said.”

 

Pakistan

 

Gulf News: US Wants To Continue Working With Pakistan On Border Security,
Counter-Terrorism
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“The United States wants to continue working with Pakistan in areas of mutual
interests including border security and counterterrorism. “We value our
bilateral relationship,” Ned Price, the US Department of State spokesperson,
said at a press briefing on Thursday. “We want to continue to work together in
areas where we do have mutual interests with our Pakistani partners. That
includes counterterrorism. That includes border security as well. He said this
in response to a question about resumption of US security assistance suspended
by previous US administration amidst surge in terror attack due to situation in
Afghanistan. The spokesperson also “strongly condemned” the militant attack on
Karachi University last week, in which three Chinese nationals and one
Pakistani lost their lives in a deadly suicide bombing. The attack was claimed
by the banned militant organisation Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and carried
out by a woman suicide bomber. “A terrorist attack anywhere is an affront to
humanity everywhere, but for a terrorist attack to take place at a university,
or at a religious site, or at some of the locations we’ve seen recently – that
is a true affront to mankind,” Price added The US has congratulated Shehbaz
Sharif on becoming Pakistan’s new prime minister last month, however, the two
countries have remained at odds.”

 

Middle East

 

Al Monitor: Islamic Jihad Claims New Drones Made In Gaza
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“As part of their ongoing military preparations and less than a year after the
Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in May 2021, the military factions in the Gaza
Strip continue to threaten to respond to Israeli actions in the Palestinian
territories using new military equipment they are developing. Al-Quds Brigades,
the military wing of Islamic Jihad, announced April 28 having locally
manufactured, for the first time, a new drone it called the “Jenin drones” to
carry out attacks against Israel. Islamic Jihad made the announcement in a
video posted on its website, showing an earlier version of the new drone, which
it had used against Israeli military vehicles stationed near the border with
Gaza in September 2019. The video footage shows the drone dropping an explosive
device from a medium altitude range, before returning to the Gaza Strip safely.
Later, the video shows members of the brigade equipping the drone with
small-sized missiles at the headquarters of Al-Quds Brigades, showing that the
drone is now able to carry more advanced military bombs than before. In another
video released April 28, on the eve of International Quds Day, which falls on
the last Friday of Ramadan every year, Al-Quds Brigades’ spokesman Abu Hamza
said that the Jenin drone became part of the brigades’ air force that Islamic
Jihad continues to develop inside the besieged Gaza Strip since 2007.”

 

Africa

 

All Africa: West Africa: Enablers Of Political Extremism - A Checklist For
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“The Sahel - the region just south of the Sahara - is home to the world's
fastest growing extremist group, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin or JNIM,
and the most deadly group, Islamic State in West Africa, according to the 2022
Global Terrorism Index. The various militant groups in the Sahel have different
tactical preferences and operate in specific contexts. What they share is a
general ideological commitment to unsettle and obliterate existing state
structures, not necessarily to take over the state. Security continues to
deteriorate across the Sahel. Groups are expanding their reach and carrying out
deadlier attacks, taking hostages, ambushing highways and attacking villages.
This is despite many counterterrorism interventions over the last decade,
including various French-led programmes, the G5 Sahel Joint Force, the
Multinational Joint Task Force and the United Nations Multidimensional
Stabilisation Mission in Mali. The withdrawal of France and its EU partners
from Mali signals a counter-terrorism fatigue. Military takeovers in the
sub-region also suggest the situation may continue to get worse. As extremist
groups form alliances, co-opt pre-existing conflicts and head south from the
Sahel, West African countries like Ghana, Benin, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire are
increasingly on edge.”

 

All Africa: Mozambique: Muslim Leaders Reject Terrorism
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“The Muslim community in Mozambique on 2 May celebrated the end of the fasting
month of Ramadan with appeals to peace and harmony, particularly in the
northern province of Cabo Delgado which has been ravaged by terrorist attacks
perpetrated by jihadist groups since October 2017. In Nampula province, Sheik
Abdul Latifo stressed that Muslims repudiate armed violence and will cooperate
with the government to identify those who are using Islam to manipulate and
murder. “We are facing the problem of terrorism in Cabo Delgado”, he said.
“They are killing our fellow countrymen, burning down houses, destroying public
and private buildings, and looting property. These bandits are trying, without
success, to use the name of Islam, they have tried to use the name of Allah in
their raids”. “They are trying to besmirch the good name of Islam”, said
Latifo. “They have forgotten that, in Islam, human blood is sacred and must not
be shed”. Addressing the terrorists, he said, “We shall show society what Islam
is. We shall warn our young people not to fall into your poisonous traps. We
shall block any attempts to turn our youths into your instruments”. Nampula
provincial governor Manuel Rodrigues added, “We would urge our Muslim brothers
to multiply their efforts to make our society a space for peaceful and
harmonious co-existence between citizens of different religious beliefs”.”

 

United Kingdom

 

BBC News: Terror-Accused Student 'Wanted A Full On War'
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“A would-be terrorist hatched plans for a “full on war” and wrote recipes for
a bomb intended for use on a police station, a jury heard. Student Luke Skelton
wanted to run a violent group and attack “rape gangs”, Teesside Crown Court was
told. The 18-year-old, who was arrested in October, is alleged to have held an
extreme right-wing ideology. Mr Skelton, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, denies
preparing to commit terrorist acts. The jury heard details of comments made
online, in text messages and in handwritten notes found at his home. Det Con
Melanie Clarke, from North East Counter Terrorism Policing, read out excerpts
in which the defendant said he wanted to protect “white girls” by targeting
“rape gangs”. The jury heard the Gateshead College student had written: “I've
got all the equipment I need to hunt down the gangs…I want a full on war.” It
was also said he wrote that he wanted “a chat with a drag queen…involving a
knife”. The court was told Mr Skelton devised recipes for explosives, including
“nails and ball bearings” and a named chemical “for [a] faster boom.” Sarah
Wilson, a forensic explosives expert at the government's Porton Down
laboratories, told the jury a viable device could be made from the ingredients.”

 

Canada

 

CBC: Online Content Creators Are Making Money From Hate, Misinformation, Mps
Told
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“Creators of hateful content and misinformation are making millions of dollars
through social media, the head of an international non-profit group told MPs
studying ideologically motivated violent extremism Thursday. Imran Ahmed is
chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has
been tracking online hate for the past six years. He told members of the House
of Commons public safety and national security committee that a profitable
online economy has emerged around hate and misinformation. “There are
commercial hate and disinformation actors who are making a lot of money from
spreading discord and peddling lies,” Ahmed said. “There is a web of commercial
actors, from platforms to payment processors to people who provide advertising
technology that is embedded on hateful content, giving the authors of that
hateful content money for every eyeball they can attract to it, that benefit
from hate and misinformation. “It's got revenues in the millions, the high
millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. That has made some
entrepreneurs in this space extremely wealthy.” Online platforms and search
engines “benefit commercially from this system,” Ahmed said.”

 

Europe

 

CAPX: Don’t Pretend A Vote For Sinn Fein Is A Vote For Reconciliation
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“Sinn Fein would have NI voters believe they have changed. With unctuous
faux-sincerity, their leader Mary Lou McDonald even calls Unionists ‘brothers
and sisters’ these days. Yet poke under the bonnet a bit, and this remains a
party that venerates the most cold-blooded of sectarian murderers. The
Troubles-era murders of three brothers in South Fermanagh will not sway any
voters in today’s Northern Ireland Assembly elections, even if they are
recalled to mind. But they ought to make clear to anyone casting their ballot
for Sinn Fein that, whatever their motivation, they are not doing so in the
cause of reconciliation. McDonald has called the IRA campaign that executed
three defenceless Protestants ‘justified’. Granted, she later tried to qualify
these comments by saying that she wished such murders had never happened – a
wish fervently shared by the one remaining sister of Ronnie, Cecil and Jimmy
Graham, whose murders were all too typical of the relentless campaign of terror
visited by Republican extremists on the Protestant minority living on the
Fermanagh border.”

 

Technology

 

The Jewish Chronicle: YouTube Again Refuses To Remove Videos Glorifying
Terrorism
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“YouTube has refused to take down videos that glorify terrorists and promote
antisemitic conspiracy theories in a move that the UK’s former independent
reviewer of anti-terror legislation said “beggars belief”.  It comes after the
JC exposed a succession of hate-filled clips on the video-sharing giant, many
of which YouTube was eventually forced to remove. But now the company appears
to be hardening its stance. Last week, the site hosted a clip in which
controversial commentator Abdel Bari Atwan railed against “Jewish Israeli
lobbies” in Parliament, calling the terrorists who killed Israelis “martyrs”
and describing their actions as “a legitimate right”. He also blamed Mossad for
the removal of his previous YouTube video praising the murder of Israelis in
Tel Aviv, which was taken down after it was exposed by the JC. But when we
brought the latest clips to YouTube’s attention, a spokesperson said:
“YouTube’s community guidelines prohibit violent extremism and hate speech. The
flagged videos have been reviewed and do not violate our policies.” Lord
Carlile, a leading law expert and former reviewer of UK anti-terror
legislation, said: “It is clear from the penetrating investigation carried out
by the JC that hateful material all too easily is finding its way onto YouTube,
because of inadequate moderation and editorial policies.”

 

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